Just Pure Lovely

1°: 15 Days of Walking Toward Better Health

In my last post, I wrote about my 360° Just Pure Lovely Project, where I'm making 360 decisions, one degree at a time, until I have completely turned my perspective around, 360°. When Quaker told me about their Quaker Heart Health Challenge, I knew it was the perfect motivation for the first degree.

 
I have reached an age where staying fit and healthy is no longer a happy subconscious occurrence, but something I actually have to work on and think about. Over the past decade of child-raising, I've let the priority of my health slip while I worried over the health of the kids.

I recently read, "You cannot give what you don't have."  I cannot give motivation, if I am not motivated.  I cannot give inspiration if I'm not inspired. I cannot give love if I do not have love.  And I cannot give me, if I have no energy or health in me.

It's time for me to become healthy! For the next 30 days, I'm committing to something simple:  I will walk or kayak at least 15 times in the next 30 days.  Hold me to it!

Would you like to join me in the Quaker Heart Health Challenge?

Joining the challenge is my first step toward becoming a healthier me.   I hope you'll join me!  Start by telling us what motivates you to stay healthy?

To encourage others and earn a chance to win $750, complete these two steps:

1.Share the Challenge with your friends

2.Tell us that you’ve invited your friends to join the Challenge AND share what motivates you to stay healthy below

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Quaker Oats Company. The opinions and text are all mine. Official Sweepstakes Rules.

360° to Just Pure Lovely

 

I have been overthinking again.

 

For a full year.

A year ago, in one of those delightful afternoon napping-but-not-really states, when the mind is free to wander while the body rests, a concept came to mind:  360° to Just Pure Lovely, or, The 360° Project....360 Just Pure Lovely moments - or decisions - until degree by degree (° by °), I (and maybe you, too?) turn toward Just Pure Lovely thoughts.   At the end of the project, thoughts will be naturally more just, pure, lovely, than not.  Hopefully.

In that dreamy state,  thoughts are a bit random and fragmented, so I have spent literally all year procrastinating trying to piece together the fragments.  

Today, I listened to someone speak about how we just Need to Do That Thing....The thing we know we're supposed to do.  And I know - I've known for a year -  that I'm supposed to do this whatever-I'll-call-it....360° Thing.

Typical me, I have been overthinking the 360° Project until I nearly killed it with questions.  So, tonight, rather than wait until it is thought out all perfectly, I present these muddy, confusing thoughts as the introduction to my project:  360° to Just Pure Lovely. 

As time goes on, ° by °, I hope I will know what it is, and why I'm supposed to be doing it.  Meanwhile, I'm not procrastinating anymore!  Degree by degree, I'll begin posting about my 360° project. 

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*Philippians 4:8

p.s. I just learned how to make the degree symbol, so I cannot resist using it a bunch -- How? Hit alt+0176 and it appears!

On 2012 Resolutions

The first of the year is always an exciting time for me.  Not only is it ... the First of the Year, but it's also the a new birth year for me (my birthday is on New Year's Eve).   Each new year, I jot down some goals, or resolutions, for the upcoming year. 

I have business goals and homeschooling goals, but I also have a few personal goals.  Each of these goals must be: 

1. interesting to me
2. improve me in some way

Like a friend said in an email last week, "I never put 'lose weight' on the list because that's always just a big never-ending continual goal of goals and nightmare. sigh."  I'll also add the excuse that losing weight doesn't increase my learning. I already know how, it's the doing that's so hard.

But, quickly, on to other things....

Here's my list of Things to Be Sure to Do in 2012:

• Set up my new weaving loom - and weave something
• Spin yarn from fiber with my barely-ever-used spinning wheel
• Walk more days than not
• Learn to cook quick, fast, healthy meals without a recipe (like a tv chef!  ...or a hibachi grill guy) Do you have any food blog suggestions, or favorite recipes to help me out?
• Write every morning.  Something.  Somewhere. (and blog here a few times a week!)
• Learn the settings on my camera, so I can take pictures when the world is not perfectly lit.
• Go to the beach every month (because I want the kids to have memories of a year of beach days)

I want to add a few more items, but that's the list so far.  I try to keep it at about 10 items so I'm sure to meet each goal.  And when I accomplish one, like weaving, I often replace it with another. 

Did you make any resolutions, goals, to-do lists this year?  Please share.  You inspire me so.

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Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

I'm taking a break

to enjoy the Christmas holidays with family.  

Soon, we'll celebrate my New Year's Eve birthday (ack!)

and prepare for 2012.

 

I’ll be back in the New Year! 

To receive a note when I'm back blogging, subscribe here:

Our family wishes yours a wonderful holiday season.

Our 8-year-old:  "What's the name of this library?  I like it." 

me:  "Barnes & Noble.  I like it, too." 

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Sometimes

This evening, as I lay my weary head against the back of the yellow chair in my room, I listened to the raindrops and the boys playing together.  At moments like this, thankfulness balances out the weariness.  

At moments like these, I lean my head back and say,

"God, I don't know what in Heaven I'm doing,

but I thank you for this mommy job anyway."  

 

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How to Have Healthy Kids (or, How We're Doing It)

When our oldest two were little tykes they were so often ill. Sometime in the year 2000, they became healthy.   I know, it could be that their immune systems became stronger as they got older, but get this:  our younger two, born in 2000 and 2003,  have never had a sickness even worthy of a doctor visit!

So...why are our children so healthy now?

Read what changed in 2000 to help our children become healthy, and please comment with your tips! 

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Over there, Johnson & Johnson will donate $1 for every sign in or Facebook like (you can do that below)!  And by replying on my post, you'll be entered to win an exclusive Million Moms Challenge Gift Pack, which includes an iPad2, a custom-made Million Moms Challenge pendant and a $50 donation in your name to Global Giving!

This  is the final post in our Million Moms Challenge series (previous posts are here and here), so time is running out to help.

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p.s. Comments here are closed because we need you to go to that post to comment.  It will help us (moms) reach a million moms across the globe who need our help. Thanks for helping! 

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I'm Giving Something Away!

And it looks like this....

Go to my FreelyEducate.com blog to enter (it's easy, just say you want it!).  I'd love to see a Just Pure Lovely reader win!

On Frogging & Trying Again

Cast on, knit, purl, purl, purl, purl, knit ....frog*. 

Sigh. 

Where's the J hook? 

Chain, single, single, double, double, half double, single, bind off....huh, it's another not-what-the-pattern-photo-looks-like. 

Improvise.

Decide it's a little bag, or a hand cuff or...I know! It's a neck sweater!

And that.  Sums up my weekend. 

Did you get a little more than that done over the weekend?  (I hope so)

*frog  (frôg, frg)n.

1. Any of numerous tailless, aquatic, semiaquatic, or terrestrial amphibians of the order Anura and especially of the family Ranidae, characteristically having a smooth moist skin, webbed feet, and long hind legs adapted for leaping. (from this dictionary)

2. To "rip" out one's stitches, as in "rip-it," "rip-it," "rip-it" out (go ahead, say that out loud.  hear the frog noise?).  I have frogged more projects than I've finished this weekend.  (from the dictionary in my head, but frequently said in knitting & crocheting forums).

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A Simple Box for Thread (& Dozens of Free Sewing Tutorials)

I recently noticed where our ballerina keeps her sewing thread, and thought it was such a good idea, I wanted to share it with you...

You can find those boxes at Michaels, in the wooden objects section.  It holds three thread spools neatly. Great idea, right?  She's a smart kiddo.

Speaking of sewing (aren't we?  speaking of sewing?), Sew Mama Sew is showcasing the most wonderful free sewing tutorials on the 'net, categorized for us!  Here is Imagination, here is Color (which includes this amazing Scrap Map of America that I will make for our little school room), and here, under Growing, is a recipe for Lemon Sugar Scrub (so, obviously, it's not all about sewing).  There is one category for each weekday of November, so surely we can find a gift idea to sew!

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